Giuliani Inches His Way to the White House

BRETTON WOODS, NH, — Appearing in New Hampshire for the first time since creating a presidential exploratory committee, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani appeared to inch closer to a White House bid. Joined by his wife, Judith Nathan, and a phalanx of security guards and aides, Giuliani braved subzero temperatures to speak to about 500 members of a local chamber of commerce at the historic Mt. Washington hotel here.

One audience member got straight to the point after Giuliani gave an extemporaneous speech focusing on leadership and then asked for questions.

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“Will we see you on the next presidential ballot?”

After waiting for the applause that the question drew to die down, Giuliani said, “That may be more up to you than me.”

“I have to make a decision about my exploratory committee and running, but ultimately the more important decision is what you make a year from now.”

After praising New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary, Hizzoner reiterated that his assessment “has something to do with the decision Judith and I make, but it has a lot more to do with the decision you make.”

Warming the hearts of Giuliani's new campaign team on a night so cold that even the inside of the hotel had drafty spots, the questioner responded by telling the former mayor, to applause: “You have a lot more support than you realize.”

Shaking hands, signing autographs and posing for pictures on his way out of the ballroom, Giuliani was again asked by a supporter when he was going to make an announcement.

“Not quite sure, we're getting there,” he half-whispered.

But asked directly by this reporter what his timetable was for making a decision, Giuliani was vague.

“Don't have one. Timeline is when you've considered everything you've had to consider.”

In a speech that lasted about 20 minutes, Giuliani focused on the namesake of his book and the attribute that many in the room associated with him in interviews after the program. Holding up as examples the top two presidents in the Republican pantheon, Lincoln and Reagan, Giuliani explained their leadership qualities.

“I don't imagine that they had those favorable/unfavorable things back during the Civil War,” but Lincoln would not have fared well, Giuliani said.

Seeming to draw present-day comparisons, Giuliani noted that Lincoln even faced riots in New York City because people were unhappy with the war. “They wanted to quit because it was getting too tough.”

There were extensive casualties, the conflict dragged on and Lincoln had to fire many of his generals, Giuliani reminded the salad-eating crowd.

Yet there came no comparison to President Bush and the war in Iraq. Instead, Giuliani lavished praised on the 40th president, recalling his days working in the Reagan Justice Department.

“He knew where he was taking the country,” Giuliani said of Reagan, and did so based on principle.

“We have too many people in politics who take decisions based on polls. They tell you what they want to hear. It does not make them leaders, it makes them actors.”

Giuliani also discussed his battle against prostate cancer and his response to 9/11, but Reagan kept seeming to come back up. Asked by an audience member about how he would deal with the federal budget, Giuliani said Washington needed to embrace the sort of “budget discipline” not seen since “back in the Reagan years.” Answering a question about how he foresees the administration getting along with the new Democratic Congress, Hizzoner noted that he's “an optimist – I learned that from Ronald Reagan also.” Then there was the easiest query of them all: What was his favorite story about the Gipper? (the most “moving” one, Giuliani replied, was his recollection of having breakfast with Reagan the day he was shot).

If Reagan's name was mentioned by the dozens, it was difficult to recall more than one passing mention of the current Republican occupant of the White House. Indeed, Gov. Jeb Bush came in for more praise than his brother as Giuliani spoke of the Floridian's emergency preparedness efforts and adroit handling of the many hurricanes that struck the state.

Until the end, though, the speech was almost entirely bereft of any mention of Giuliani's presidential ambitions. Thanking his hosts, the New Yorker said he'd be back to the resort for golf and his wife skiing.

“Maybe we'll come back and do some politics, too,” he added to applause

Many of the mostly-Republican attendees liked what they heard and said they'd likely support Giuliani in a White House bid.

“I would vote for him any day of the week,” said Jean Mercier, the wife of a local fire chief. Mercier, who grew teary-eyed as Giuliani inscribed a 9/11 memorial book before the speech, said Giuliani's response to the terrorist attacks still “resonates with anybody who has been to Ground Zero” or has a connection to “first responders.”

Schulyer Sweet, a transplant to the region from upstate New York seemed to pick up Giuliani's message. “I liked his analogies to President Reagan.”

Ronay Bovarnick, the lady who asked Giuliani when he would launch a campaign as he worked the room, was even more helpful, despite her husband's efforts to keep her from saying anything impolitic.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, she explained, “doesn't have convictions” while Arizona Sen. John McCain “waffles back and forth.”

But Giuliani is just right, she said. “We need somebody strong.”

If the response was glowing, the stagecraft was even better.

Giuliani arrived at the century-old hotel, best known for holding the 1944 international conference that would create the first world monetary system, to a group of girl scouts selling their cookies. The former mayor quickly offered up $80 for 20 boxes (they usually go for $3.50 each). Mostly evading the media scrum on the way out, Giuliani and his wife ran into a couple who happened to be up for a ski weekend with their adorable 3 ½ year-old and 14-month-old. More pictures taken, it was then it was back out into -11-degree air that probably didn't feel as harsh to Giuliani as it did on the way in.